nadar

Forms

nadar (first-person singular present nado, first-person singular preterite nadei, past participle nadado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin natō (“to swim, float”), already Old Galician-Portuguese nadar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb is a frequentative formed from nō (“to swim”).^[5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician nadar, Spanish nadar, Catalan nadar and Occitan nadar; a variant *notāre lies behind Italian nuotare and Old French noer.^[6][1]

De Vaan traces the Latin verbs to Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to swim, float”), with its participle *(s)nh₂-to-, the source of the stem of the frequentative;^[7] Old Irish has a cognate verb for “to swim”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria already use the verb: in cantiga 33 a man would be saved per nadar “by swimming”, and cantiga 225 has dentro no sangui nadando “swimming in the blood”.^[8] Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century from Cunha's medieval index.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The figurative “to be soaked in, steeped in a liquid” is old: the Miragres de Santiago say that the horses swam in the blood of the Moors who died there.^[8] Morais's dictionary of 1789 adds nadar em delícias “to revel in pleasures” and eyes swimming in wine or sleep.^[9] Houaiss and Aurélio record the senses “to have in abundance” (nadar em dinheiro) and, of clothes, “to be far too large for someone”.^[2][10]

In Brazil, informal nadar also means “to be lost, not to understand”.^[2][11] Common phrases are nadar como um prego “to swim like a nail”, that is not to swim at all, and nadar contra a maré “to swim against the tide”.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have per nadar and nadando.^[8][2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[14]
• 15th century – the forms anadar, nadãdo and nadavom.^[2]
• 16th century – first record of nadador and nado.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it by Latin nato.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as keeping oneself up in water by moving arms and legs.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais records nadar em delícias.^[9]
• 1858 – first record of the learned natação.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To swim: to move or keep afloat in water by moving the body: O cão nadou até à margem.^[2][1][17]
2. (intransitive) To swim as a sport; to compete in swimming races.^[2][1]
3. (transitive) To swim a distance or across something, or a given stroke.^[2][1]
4. (intransitive) To float.^[2][13]
5. (with em) To be steeped or soaked in a liquid: nadar em suor.^[2][10]
6. (with em, figurative) To have plenty of something; to revel in it: nadar em dinheiro.^[2][1][17]
7. (figurative) Of clothes, to be much too loose; of a person, to wear clothes far too large.^[2][1]
8. (Brazil, informal) To fail to understand; to be lost.^[2][11]

Word family

• nadador
• nadadeira
• nado
• nadante

Related words

• natação
• Latin nato
• Galician nadar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nadar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nadar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nadar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5846
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. nadar
9. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 107
10. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. nadar
11. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. nadar
12. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6413
13. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. nadar
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. nadar
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. nadar
16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. nadar
17. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. nadar